About 70 percent of businesses in the manufacturing and service sectors have been negatively affected by a local COVID-19 outbreak that started in May, but the impact is “manageable,” the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) said in a report yesterday.
The report, prepared with the help of industrial and trade organizations, surveyed Taiwanese businesses last month and this month during a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert, with 52.2 percent of respondents saying that pandemic restrictions in the workplace or working from home affected their productivity.
Manufacturers were most concerned about logistics difficulties caused by the pandemic, with container ships stuck at foreign ports or simply unavailable, it said.
Photo courtesy of Industrial Technology Research Institute
Had the level 3 alert continued until the end of the year, 50.2 percent of the polled manufacturers said they would have faced components and raw material shortages, it said.
The components shortage “is not just due to level 3 controls, but also stems from the reshuffling of global supply chains,” it said.
Companies in the service sector were hit harder by decreased business, with 39.3 percent saying they have seen significantly reduced orders and 38.6 percent reporting modestly reduced orders, while 8.8 percent reported higher orders due to pandemic-related demand.
However, 4.3 percent said they had suspended operations due to the pandemic.
“The biggest concern of businesses is the smooth and swift administration of vaccines,” the report said.
About 80 percent of respondents said vaccination was a “pressing concern,” it said.
The pandemic should hasten efforts to facilitate the digital transformation of Taiwanese businesses to boost the resilience of Taiwanese supply chains, said Stephen Su (蘇孟宗), vice president and general director of Industry, Science and Technology International Strategy Center at ITRI.
“We had expected a 10-year timeline for the digital transformation of Taiwanese businesses, but in the wake of ‘black swan’ events like COVID-19, that needs to be brought forward,” Su said. “We need to strengthen Taiwanese supply chains so we can keep our key position in the greater global supply chain.”
“It is no longer good enough to simply chase the lowest costs. A more well-distributed supply chain and the ability of businesses to continue operating online would help Taiwanese businesses keep operating in case of unexpected events,” he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last